


An Isolated Moment Of Life

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-26
Updated: 2008-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Isolated Moment Of Life

He wakes up still drunk with one of his birthday cards stuck to his face. The ink's gone smeary and he can't read the signature when he pulls it off. He's not sure what time it is, and the only things telling him that he's still in Vegas are the casino chips on the nightstand and the desert dryness in his throat and nose.

He weaves into the bathroom and manages to brush his teeth. It only takes a second to go from drunk to hungover, and he decides he's not going to bother with a shower. At this point, he's going to be lucky if he makes it back to bed.

He doesn't feel any older. He'd kept saying it, last night, whenever anyone would ask him, maybe because it wasn't even his actual birthday yet (was it his actual birthday today? He might have to check his phone). It seemed like last night had passed in a blur of Gabe shouting over the karaoke machine and Rob wearing some kind of Viking hat and a lot of faces that he barely knew or knew slightly. Gabe kept yelling at him to "loosen up, you pussy," but Gabe was hardly conscious himself at that point.

Now the girls have gone home, and there's a half-eaten birthday cake on the dresser between the TV and the rest of his birthday cards, and he can barely move. He turns the TV on and leaves the sound off, wondering if he should call home to check on things.

His phone buzzes. He fumbles it open and croaks, "Yeah," at it.

"What are you doing?" Gabe says. "I'm stuck in this shitty room by myself."

"I just woke up," Mike says. "No. I'm not awake."

"Dude, you're a fucking lightweight. Who's there with you?"

"What?"

"No post-party fucking?" Gabe sounds disappointed in him.

"Nah, nah, not like that."

"Come on, bro. You had about five girls hanging off you all night, you didn't –"

"Too much going on." The hangover migrates somewhere down by his left eye, jabbing him repeatedly in the temple. "What time's it?"

"Rob took off, the fucker," Gabe complains, like he hasn't heard. "Something about his _actual_ birthday. They're doing some shit at the bar for him. I was sure he'd stick around to hang out a little. Get rid of the negativity."

"That's still there?"

"It's not there for _me_. I don't know. Hey, great idea. How about you stop being a pussy and come down to the casino with me?"

The thought of the endless casino floor and the watered down drinks doesn't do much for him. " _You_ go down to the casino."

"I'll win you a new house, birthday boy," Gabe drawls into his ear. "C'mon, it's been, what, five hours?"

Gabe gambles like he's trying to save humanity, and Mike can't get into it even when he's feeling on top of things. Before he can say anything, Gabe says, "Look, I'll come over while you get your ass in gear. Call room service and order me a fruit plate."

"But –" he starts, but Gabe's already gone. He hangs up, grumbling half-heartedly to himself; if there's one thing Gabe can do, it's make him forget about himself for a while.

Doesn't mean he's going to drag his ass down to the casino before he gets a cigarette and an Advil, though.

It's ten minutes before Gabe's rapping smartly on the door. When Mike opens it, Gabe's eyes are sunken back in his face and he looks sallow and exhausted. Mike doesn't mention it, because he knows if he does, Gabe's just going to pretend that he feels great. Gabe says, "Feeling better? Ready to go?"

"What time is it?" Mike asks again.

"I left my watch back in the room. Are you _sure_ there's no girl here? You didn't, like, toss her in the closet before I got here?"

"I had other things to do," Mike says.

"You are shitty at birthdays," Gabe informs him. "Why come to Vegas if you're not going to get fucked over some way?"

"Don't know. I don't know," Mike says. He kind of wishes he were more like William right now. Both Gabe and Bill have this way of actually _talking_ that he's always been kind of sucky at. Luckily, Gabe doesn't seem to mind.

"So, where's my fruit plate, Carden? Don't tell me I came all this way for nothing."

"Didn't call."

"Fucker." Gabe hops onto the bed and picks up the remote. "When'd you disappear last night, anyway? I kind of got fucked up and then by the time I noticed you were gone."

"Like, six? Something."

"I still say we should have gone to Cheetahs," Gabe says. "When the girls left. Get, like, the whole fuckin' experience, you know?"

"I think I've kind of had that experience already," Mike says. He sits on the foot of the bed and watches Gabe channel-surf. "I don't know, strip clubs don't really have variation."

"No, this is the thing, like –" Gabe puts the remote down. "You can't go around saying, 'No, it's the same bullshit, I'm not going to open myself to it.' Because, yeah, you can maybe see tits in fucking New York or Chicago or Venezuela, but you're not going to have the same experience there, unless you close yourself off to it. You could have a fucking amazing night if you just let it happen. Because this is like, one second of your life, right? It's one second where you could be, like, fully _there_ , you know? You're _there_ , not all checked out thinking about some bullshit that doesn't matter, and that's going to be what you come away with, not thinking, 'Oh, yeah, I went to a strip club,' or whatever. Plus they filmed _Showgirls_ at Cheetahs. That's awesome." He laughs and keeps changing channels.

He's not in any kind of shape to handle Gabe's philosophy of life right now. He rolls onto his stomach and watches the TV screen flicker and change.

"Carden," Gabe says. He nudges Mike with his foot gently. "What's going on?"

Mike mumbles something back.

"Pussy," Gabe says affectionately.

He feels better when he wakes up. His face is pushed up against Gabe's thigh. When he looks up through his hair, Gabe is sitting, chin in hand and eyes looking off into the distance, expressionless. The TV is still on.

"Hello," Mike says.

Gabe snaps out of it and grins down at him. "You fucked my whole day up," he says, and jostles Mike's shoulder. "You owe me."

"Okay," Mike says. He pulls himself out of Gabe's lap. He has kind of an embarrassing tendency to grab onto things in his sleep and then not let go, and he's waiting for Gabe to say something about it, but Gabe's already off the bed, bouncing on the soles of his feet and saying, "Casino, casino, casino."

"Totally," Mike says. He goes to grab his wallet and scratches his face. Gabe says, "Santi, c'mon, let's go."

Something about Gabe's tone makes his heart sink. Mike says, "What the fuck did you do to me?"

"Nothing!" Gabe says. "Hey, uh, what about –"

He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look at the mirror above the dresser. There's a slightly smeary but deeply recognizable cock drawn on his face, starting around his right eyebrow. The head, which seems to be circumcised and spurting droplets, is nestled up in the corner of his mouth. " _Gabe._ "

Gabe would look a lot more remorseful if he wasn't laughing his ass off. "I was just trying to get out of the room," he gasps. "Fuckin' get to the lobby and you'd walk in like – like –"

"Fuck you," Mike says. "Goddamnit, Gabe."

Gabe can't answer. Mike stomps into the bathroom and slams the door.

"Carden," Gabe says from outside. "C'mon, it's funny."

"I'm not fuckin' laughing," Mike says. He turns on the hot tap.

Gabe opens the door and pokes his head around it. "Yo, are you really pissed at me?"

"Fuck you."

"C'mon, hey. It'll come right off." Gabe grabs a towel and runs it under the tap. "Just some _shmutz_ , bro, I'll get it."

"I was getting it," Mike says, but goes still. Gabe tilts his chin up.

"You've got to loosen up," Gabe says, scrubbing. "You know I'm just a douchebag."

"Yeah," he mutters. He knows, somewhere, that he's going to find this funny later, but he hates being surprised and he hates looking stupid in front of Gabe.

"There. All better now." Gabe tosses the towel, stained with ink, onto the counter. "C'mon, I'll win you something."

In the casino, he plays the slots while Gabe plays blackjack. He doesn't really bet enough to win anything big, and he gets distracted watching people around him. Waitresses with tired eyes keep bringing him drinks that are all ice.

When Gabe finds him again, Mike asks, "Did you win?"

"Did I _win_ ," Gabe says, already leading him away. "Did you pick up anybody?"

"I wasn't trying to."

At dinner, Gabe tells him, "Everybody in the world is basically full of shit. It took me a while to figure that out."

Mike laughs in a way that he hopes says, "Okay, where are you going with this?" Gabe probably doesn't need the encouragement.

Mike thinks it's been this way since the beginning. When he first met Gabe, he wasn't too far beyond being the kid who'd put In The Songs on every mix CD. He and William had talked about it before that particular tour had even started, that the only band rule, until they came off the road, had to be "Act cool in front of Midtown." Then they actually started the tour and it took about a week before both he and Bill were stupid in love with Gabe.

Neither of them knew what to do with it, except try to pretend it wasn't happening. Sometimes Bill would come back from drinking with Gabe and clamber into Mike's bunk, unless it was a day when they were fighting, and they'd whisper about what Gabe said before falling asleep.

Things haven't really changed in three years.

It's some ungodly hour of the morning when they start staggering back to their rooms. Gabe pauses by the door that leads out to the pool, and says, "Hey."

He's got that look in his eye that says he's planning something, and it can't be good. Mike says, "What are you gonna do?"

"Nothin'," Gabe says, like he's already been caught, but he's opening the door and heading out.

The pool area is empty; the lights shine down and everything looks green in Vegas neon. Gabe says, "Let's work that fuckin' dinner off."

"Gabe –"

"It's been twenty minutes, we'll be fine." Gabe unzips his hoodie and tosses it on the back of one of the couches in the cabana.

"I don't have my suit."

"It's better without a suit. Yo, check these undies out." Gabe flashes him a shot of black before unzipping his jeans. "Like, five bucks at this shitty mall store. Discount Calvin Klein."

"We're in _public_."

"Yeah, so? It's late, no one cares. Just tell them we're the new entertainment." Gabe pushes his socks neatly inside his sneakers and then whips his jeans off. Mike's hoping that he manages to keep his underwear on, but Gabe doesn't appear to be in any hurry to stop stripping.

"You're gonna get arrested," Mike says matter-of-factly. He sits next to Gabe's clothes in the cabana and lights a cigarette. "Scaring the children."

"Hey, I'm a teacher, you know? Better they learn now than later. C'mon, you pussy, let's play Marco Polo."

"I'm not playing shit."

"It'll be fun." Gabe puts the last of his clothes down and takes a running jump into the pool, curling his legs to his chest and hitting the water hard. When he comes back up, he continues, "Get in with your shorts on, I won't laugh."

"I don't wanna swim."

"You _love_ swimming. You told me."

"What?"

"You don't remember, you were drunk. C'mon, bro. Two seconds. Don't leave me all alone."

"No," Mike says, but he sounds a little more uncertain than he wants to. The pool looks like a mirror with Gabe rising out of the middle, long and lean, making little splashy motions with his hands.

"One game," Gabe says, and sings, "'Don't leave me, all alone, just drop me off at home.'"

"I – can't."

"You can do anything you want," Gabe says. "It's your birthday and you're with me."

"Goddamnit," Mike says, but he's pulling off his shirt and unzipping his jeans.

" _Yeah,_ " Gabe says. "Come on, it's like a gigantic fuckin' bathtub in here."

He's down to his shorts, and the desert air is cold on the skin of his back. He looks at the pile of his clothes and back at the pool. Gabe paddles over.

"Just rip them off and jump in. Who's going to care?"

For a minute, he considers it. Then he says, "Nah, nah, I'm not gonna."

"Save on laundry. You know how tough it is to get chlorine stains out?"

"You're fucking nuts," Mike says, looking back at the door to the hotel, and then he takes a deep breath and drops his boxers, and then jumps into the pool.

"Awesome," Gabe says. He splashes water on Mike's stomach. "Now put those old jock skills of yours to good use and race me."

They only get out of the water when they start getting pruney, steal towels from the cabana and then make a run back to Mike's room before anyone starts getting suspicious.

"Want to take a shower?" Mike says when they're both safely inside. "Try to get the chemicals off?"

Gabe makes a face. "Hotel showers are nasty. You don't know what's been in there."

Mike thinks about pointing out that he hadn't been nearly as squeamish about jumping bareass into a pool where about forty million people had been previously, but doesn't. He says, "I'm gonna get this shit off of me."

Gabe lights a cigarette. "If you're into that."

He's been under the hot water for two minutes when he remembers that he's going back to Chicago tomorrow afternoon. He thinks that this doesn't feel like his life, only an isolated moment, something that won't happen again.

The hotel soap doesn't really get the chlorine smell off completely, but he doesn't care. He walks out still half-wet and half-dressed.

The TV is on, but Gabe's not watching it. He's sitting by the window, barefoot in his jeans, shirt hanging in his hands. He has his knees curled protectively to his chest. He's staring out the window at the city, quiet and far away.

Mike thinks that's it's easy to forget how Gabe can be when he thinks that other people aren't watching.

"Hey," he says, his voice rough from the long night, and pads over to the window and kneels down. "You all right?"

"Santi," Gabe says, "it's been a long week, right?"

"Totally," Mike says. He puts his hand on Gabe's back, hesitates, rests his chin on Gabe's shoulder.

"What's this shit," Gabe says, laughing a little, but doesn't move. When Mike touches his face, he says, "Don't start if you're not going to follow through."

"I'm following," Mike says.

Gabe tastes like smoke and his eyes are very dark when Mike pulls out of the kiss. He sits like he's poised to make a move, gauging the chances. Mike grabs his hands and pulls him up, feeling Gabe's pulse under his fingers.

Mike thinks that it's as good a time as any for them both to lose themselves, for a while.


End file.
